Dubuque Bargain Hunts

Winter here in the great midwest can be one big suckathon. The last three winters I haven't done much of getting out since we get snowstorms in Novemeber and then the snow sticks around till April. And every week we get at least one snowstorm but when the last snowstorm stayed south and east of here, dumping three feet out in the eastern coast, the sun came out just enough for me to wander up to Dubuque and check out our friends at Moondog Music and CDs 4 Change, which is a better record store than they advertised. Imagine my surprise of finding REM's Dead Letter Office in the 2 buck bin and thought it was too good to be true to which it was. Guy offered it to me for 10 bucks, I passed. It was a record club album and besides I didn't need it that bad when the CD can be found for half that much in the pawnshop. But I don't hold it against the guy and I'm sure I'll venture back up there in about 3 months if I get bored.

As I get older I get less tolerant with bratty kids and their do nothing parents and this came to a head at the Goodwill store where Brat 1 and 2 were playing throw the keys across the room while their stupid mother was busy not watching them. Personal to Miss Snatch, Goodwill is not Romper Room and you deserved the snotty comments directed toward you for not watching your future teen age pregnant kid when they hit 14. Problem of the world today is too many people having too many children and not supervising them properly. And then going to Wally World and three black brats running up and down the aisle. I guess these are the things that make me a cranky old man anymore, the lack of consideration by these idiots who don't supervise their kids. No, I don't have kids, but I don't want kids. I don't want to contribute to the dumbing down of America by these idiots who take Be Fruitful and Multiply. Mother Nature is getting ticked off at us for this, that explains why we are getting more major storms and earthquakes. The process of elimation and here's hoping that you are one of them.

Borders had some CDs of note in the 5.99 6.99 bins, Flatt & Scruggs Foggy Mountain Jubilee (which when it came out in 2005 had that crap copy protected BS that got Sony Music into trouble) and Allman Brothers' Brothers & Sisters with the overplayed Ramblin Man.

Stuff found at CD's 4 Life (on record)
Law-Hold On To It (MCA 1977) Never seen this record till today, this band featured Roy Kenner from The James Gang and they had a 45 of Hold On To It which I had but nobody knows much about this band. Your run of the mill boogie and white R and B.

Smithereens-Green Thoughts (Capitol 1988) By the time I started buying CDs in the late 1980s I quit buying vinyl albums around 1988 since CDs was the wave of the future. But now that the CDs are being extinct, I been searching for the late 80s albums that I didn't buy. Part of the problem was that vinyl in the late 80s was shitty sounding (they all seem to be made by some company name EAST, must have been made in China or Mexico). Anyway had this on CD and although I liked some of the songs, Green Thoughts only was a straight B album. May have been the recording itself. A second listen on vinyl hasn't covinced me otherwise although it good to revisit The World We Used To Know featuring the late great Del Shannon on backing vocal.

Eddie Money-The Sound Of Money (Columbia 1989) Out on CD for years but this is the first and only time that I seen it on vinyl. Yes Baby Hold On is overplayed on classic rock and so is Two Tickets To Paradise but I always like Wanna Go Back.

From Moondog Music
Jay Reatard-Watch Me Fall (Matador 2009) Too bad that he wanted to kill himself on drugs and booze but his debut for Matador turned out to be a garage tour de force. Sounds a bit more wilder than what Jack White would put out. One of the few albums of new stuff that I have bought (the other was Mudcrutch) and if I so dire I can download the MP3 version free. I like the physical product myself.

Tommy Keene-Run Now (Geffen EP 1987) The rare EP that Keene recorded between albums for Geffen and I consider his Geffen years to be best of his stuff. Includes an OTT version of Kill Your Sons. Later Geffen would reissue Songs From The Film on CD and added this EP as a bonus.

The Grassroots-Lotta Mileage (Dunhill 1973) If memory serves me well this was their final vinyl for ABC records before moving to Haven/Capitol the next year, and then returned to MCA in 1981 for a one off. Another album that I have never seen before now (even in their hit years I don't recall ever seeing Lotta Mileage at any store) this had two minor hits with Love Is What You Make It (have the 45 to this although it's very scratchy and I played it a lot) and No Smoke Without Fire.

Gregg Allman Band-I'm No Angel (Epic 1987) He had a big hit with the title track and Anything Goes got some airplay on KUPD in Phoenix when I lived down there but this is mostly highly polished AOR MOR, featuring some of the lesser known members of The Allman Brothers Band (Dan Toler). Includes Don't Want You No More/It's Not My Cross To Bear which led off side one of the first Allman Brothers album. Kinda like the Arista ABB years. Good but not something you would play all the time.

CD finds
Jefferson Airplane Takes Off (RCA 1996 2nd reissue) Adds Running Through The Country (the 1st generation CD didn't have that song) and adds a stereo/mono mix. Some great songs (Blues From An Airplane, Come Up The Years), Signe Anderson tears through Chuffear Blues and a early version of Get Together (later a big hit for The Youngbloods). Their most folk sounding album although Let Me In does hint of their future.

U2-Zooropia (Island 1993) Four guys tearing down The Joshua Tree, Bono apes Jagger on Lemon and oversings on Stray but the second half gets much better with Some Days Are Better Than Others and gets points for the enternal Johnny Cash on The Wanderer.

Ted Hawkins-Suffer No More (Rhino 1998) A selection of the late folk soul singer best known songs. Starts out as the great lost soul singer then becomes more more folk and sparse. Hawkins made it to DGC to record The Next Hundred Years and then suffered a stroke and died New Years's 1995. Takes the 2 best songs off that album (Strange Conversation and The Good And Bad) and adds Biloxi, which goes on a bit too long. He sounded a bit like Sam Cooke but Who Got My Natural Comb? he sounds like Otis Redding.